obsession
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: Tseng's deep, dark secret.


**Author's Note**: Revised author's note, because I don't hate myself as much now. Not for the faint of heart, this piece, but. . .eh, if that stuff floats your boat, have at it. I won't be reading it again for a month or two, personally.

**obsession**

I remember. . .

I remember when you were a child.

We sat at the playground in Sector 7 do you remember? and you played for hours. I was content with that much, just sitting and watching and asking the occasional question about your life outside of mine. I remember once, long ago, you called me Papa. And you laughed with that childish innocence as you corrected yourself

"Sorry, Tseng."

Tseng.

That's all I was to you then.

"Come on, Tseng!"

I was Mr. Lander to your mother.

"Mr. Lander, I appreciate what you're doing for my daughter, watching her every day."

But what was I to you in the end, hm? I know what everyone thought I was: Turk. Cold-blooded killer. Heartless prick bent on your harm. Cold steel in an open wound to see if he'll scream. But I also know what I really was: Tseng Lander. Tseng that carried you home, nursed your wounds. Mr. Lander that told your mother not to mind babysitting money -- it was pure generosity.

It really was that, generosity. Elmyra had a job, and you were such a fascinating, beautiful child I simply would not take no for an answer. I suppose some might call it an infatuation; take that as you like.

In truth, I was the collector and you were my prize. My porcelain doll devoid of all stains or imperfections. Kept on my shelf until the day I perished, always perfect in my eyes, not a blemish on your cheek nor a scar on your fair skin.

I made one, once.

A doll.

You would lose small scraps of your dress when you played on that playground, and I kept them all. When your hair fell out, I would subtly pick it from your collar and put it into my inside pocket, smiling calmly all the while, watching as you, my perfect rose among the patch of thorny bushes, played your games, laughed your laughs, and enjoyed life to the fullest.

Slowly, shred by shred, you pieced yourself into a small doll in my desk drawer. Hair from your head, shreds of dresses for a dress, a rosy blush upon your cheeks from real blood, even scabs that I kept in a baggie to carefully be pieced into your frail face.

I bathed you the first time you came home, dusty from the usual playground, but you were far too young to be on your own and I, Tseng, was certainly trustworthy enough. Elmyra told me when she left -- "If she needs a bath, she'll ask you and show you how to do it." -- that I was allowed to do so.

Ah, even at four, your skin was so fair. You had a small scar on your neck, from a biking accident you told me, I remember that. I remember it because carefully, with a safety pin from your adoptive mother's sewing kit, I etched it into the tiny replica in my pocket.

. . .No, I do believe there were two times I did such, though the second I have tried to block from my mind. Nearly twelve years later, when I was still a trainee and your house was still my resting ground for dinner every night. Elmyra had left town for the weekend and said that, as usual, the house would be mine to explore.

I didn't do it intentionally. It was a mistake; I thought that you may have been staying the weekend with a friend, what with how quiet the house was. It was a simple mistake, really, that I opened the bathroom door to find a whoosh of steam momentarily strangling my nostrils. Yet it was a simple impulse, upon seeing the curtain closed and you unawares, to step -- no, float, really -- across the tile floor and peer into that small crevice between the curtain rod and the curtain.

You never knew that; you never were told of how I stood and watched you shower. It was a definite ten minutes before I stepped away from the shower and out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me. When you asked, later, was that I who had come in while you were showering, I lied that, "I just stepped in for a second, then closed the door. Sorry about that." And I offered you a dinner on the town and we painted it with beauty and class.

Beauty.

Now there was something you didn't lack upon my second watch of your body.

At four you had been a giggling child. You were cute in the way which someone who has never had one of their own and the stresses involved sees small children.

At sixteen you had matured into something far beyond the word cute. Words cannot ensnare everything I gazed at that day in the shower; I felt that, as the man who had taken such care of you over the years, you owed me. I felt you belonged to me and I was supposed to be privileged to bask in the entirety of your being your mind, your emotions, even your skin.

But I dared not go there. No, if word had gotten out about something to that extent, your mother would have restrained me from visiting you, and that would not have done. No, if we'd been separated completely, something drastic would have been done, and. . .well, I don't think that would be in your best interests.

Deep down, I know it was wrong. I wasn't merely falling in love with someone far too out of my league, I was falling in love with the best friend I'd ever had. Secretly, I saved that image of you in my mind and changed the doll to fit it. A mole above your navel, a birthmark beneath your collar bone, other such details no one knew. You became my secret; my treasure; my focus.

Not only was I madly in love with you. . .I needed you. I needed that memory of our first encounter from inside your mind. I needed that feeling of knowing, undoubtedly, I was the only thing you needed in life. I needed that birthmark, that mole, perhaps a whisper in my ear saying, "Never let go," or even, "Never stop."

I needed you, Aeris Calruna Gainsborough. I needed your very soul, the essence of all you were.

There were times, when I was first a Turk, that I imagined you were there with me. A doll upon the shelf, a body clutched to mine, a laugh when I made a joke no one else understood, a soul to fuse my own with.

. . .And then he came.

You brought him home one day after seeing him in the town square, cut up and a bit bruised. I knew from the moment I saw his uniform what he was: SOLDIER trainee, aiming for First Class and a position next to The Great Sephiroth.

Zack Ebony.

He endeared himself to you immediately, with his humorous charm and anecdotes that never stopped. I watched in a false content as he smirked and you laughed. He stayed for dinner. Within a month he was staying the night. I began feeling as if you were slipping away from me and toward him, but I never distanced myself from you; I loved you, and therefore I couldn't.

So I watched.

I made an excuse every time I saw him leaving the ShinRa Building to do it myself. I followed him, almost always to your house, and watched you from around the corner. Your embrace as you opened the door, you inviting him in. After hours of my vigil, he left post-passionate kiss at the door and I followed him back to the SOLDIER barracks. He never once saw me, which was good.

But I rarely saw you, which tore me apart. The doll in my pocket was fading fast, and I'd gotten no new details in nearly a year. I was sure you had more scars now; you sold flowers in Sector 7, and that was the roughest area you could be in.

I didn't just want to know about them. I needed to see them.

For months, Zack was my quarry. Only once did I go inside with him to see your interaction, and it gave me a deep sense of being replaced. His hand in places when he didn't think I was watching, a quick peck on the lips when he knew I was, a constant arm around you, words of the future life you would have.

And then was the night I caught you. I followed him to your house at exactly 7:24 P.M. -- you rarely forget the time of such a life-altering sight -- and something changed when you met him. Oh, I should have known, as anxious as he seemed to get to your house, which Elmyra had vacated for the week. You met him at the door, yes, but with joyous smiles, you walked hand-in-hand to the garden.

My stomach tightened. You were still gorgeous, though you had grown so little in years. Zack was a good two feet taller than you. I watched it unfold, slowly at first. A caress through thin fabric, a removal of a shoe. But as your passion rose, you moved faster, almost tearing your dress as you took it off and his mouth found your breast.

It was a slow and focused act, and I watched it all from behind a poppy bush. I imagined it was me beneath you, atop you, next to you; my name you cried softly; my blue suit on the ground where his SOLDIER outfit lied; my ear you whispered "I love you" in when it was done. I fell back as Zack and I both came, and I thought for a moment you may have heard me, but you went back to gazing and panting as I fled.

That night never left me. I convinced myself once or twice it had been me and made myself very close to you within a couple of weeks, so close that Elmyra eventually told me to leave. The Gongaga Reactor Incident happened and I tried to get your attention when I walked through the town, but you always pretended not to hear me.

Perhaps evading my love brought your downfall. I dropped hints to Professor Hojo about your lineage, and soon came the order to capture you, but only if you came voluntarily.

That was all I needed.

With an excuse to be near you, I used it at all times possible. I caught you at school, in Wall Market, at your house, in your garden. I saw Zack no more, and I thought it may be my time. For years I did this, collecting more scraps of you for my desk drawer. My fascination rose. Once I pulled out a clump of your hair. Overjoyed, I ran home and laid each strand out individually on a black velvet showcase, which still rests in my desk. There was a sock you once lost while running, somewhere in your growth spurt, that I wear to work and keep on my nightstand.

The Cloud Strife adventure came, and you became mine once more. Yes, I caught you on the way back to Elmyra's house. Briefly, I didn't want to take you into ShinRa custody, rather take you into my own, but I knew it would get back to Reno that I'd let you go, and he could never know my secret. I believe I struck you once, but don't take it personally; dolls aren't supposed to get up and wander around on their own, and I was simply punishing you for running away from me in the first place.

I watched you day and night in your cell, as you showered, as you ate, as you talked to the Planet and prayed for its safety. One of the two nights you were in my control, I touched you as you slept, so gently you never could tell. Your soft skin under my fingers sent chills up my spine, and when morning came, I was the guard before you knew it.

I never once took you.

Isn't that something? All of the opportunities -- you were embarrassed of Zack, I know it, because you still said you were a virgin -- to have you just once, and I never did. Maybe I was afraid of tainting the doll on my shelf, the replica in my showcase. Maybe I loved you too much to ever do that to you. Maybe I was afraid you would find me out.

Any way, we would never know. I watched you go through the adventure with AVALANCHE through the eyes of Reeve's Cait Sith. I was going to meet you at the Temple, and my mind was made up: I would take you from them, willing or not, and make you mine. Perhaps I would whisk you away to Icicle Inn and we would be married. I'd watched you for far too long and it was my time to take a chance. I was willing to go through literally everything if it meant I achieved you. Mind-control if I needed to. I'd not added anything to your drawer in far too long; it was beginning to get dusty. I hadn't seen you in person for so long that I kept the doll, the closest thing to the real you, on me at all times.

But he came.

The Great Sephiroth, the man behind my hatred for Zack, came and took me from the world before I had a chance. I remember vaguely the act of giving the Keystone to you and your rebellious group, but I remember you yourself clearly.

You were wearing the dress Elmyra bought you for your senior prom with your favorite jacket over it. I don't recall your hair being as long as it had been the last time I'd seen you, but everyone knows what stress takes out of a person. You, my prize doll, were gorgeous despite the grime and the dried blood on your rod. I wondered if you looked as beautiful beneath as you had that day, six years previous.

My life ended then, and apparently, so did yours. It calms me knowing you were my last vision and thought, and that perhaps, just maybe, you loved me as much as I did you. I don't call it the lust that everyone else deems it as. No, I believe it was a mutual love that you ignorantly pretended was nonexistent.

But that's okay. I hold nothing against you. Even in the Lifestream, where I have been deemed a threat to the Holy race, I clutch my doll feverishly to my chest knowing, somewhere, you can hear this. Knowing that you must love me.

For if you did not. . .well, that simply would not do.

**Fin.**


End file.
